How fly swaps work

[MARAZION MIDGE]

I have noticed there is some confusion over how fly swaps work so this is an explanation.
1, select the number of people that you wish to have in the swap or join a swap that has the right amount of people to suit you. 10 is a good number any more and the tying gets a bit boring.

2, select type of flies to be tied, or pick an open choice swap of say wets, lures,drys
and so on.

3, tie the selected amount of the chosen fly ie- 10 Montana's or 10 buzzers

4, PM swap organiser for his address

5, send your tied flies and a sae to the person running the swap, you may wish to include a tying description and materials used but this is rare.

6, your flies arrive at swap organisers, who then puts 1 fly of each of the tyers into your sae and sends it back to you.

7, you receive the flies, and feel a little embarrassed that your flies are put to shame by the others (only joking)

Enjoy your swaps

[boony]

well explained, maybe the thread should be stickied at the top of the page so people in future can refer to it.

John

[A. Fluker]

Something similar from CF which seems to be quoyed from time to time here........

Fly Swaps are an organised exchange of fly patterms amongst forum members.

The swaps are hosted by a 'swap master' who is responsible for setting the rules for the swap, collecting the flies and then distributing them.
The swap master has to define the following rules for each swap:
- Type of fly to be tied (such as a nymph swap)
- Maximum number of tiers for the swap
- Sign up deadline
- Flies to be received deadline

Each tier will tie one pattern for the swap, and will tie one fly for each participant. For example, if you choose a PTN for a nymph swap with 10 participants, then you must tie 10 PTNs and send them to the swap master with a stamp addressed envelope.

The swap master will collect the flies from each participant and then sort them, returning one fly from each participant to everyone involved. Each person in the swap thern ends up with 10 different patterns (1 from each tier).

Fly Swaps are a great way to improve your tying and of sharing patterns. Not only will they improve your ability but you will get some great ideas from others.

The only thing that I add is that all flies must be transported by Jiffy Bags cause the parcel people treat the packages different to the envelopes!

[Macmagoo]

Having previously read about fly tying swaps I thought the person organising the swap just kept all the flies. I assume this is not correct. LOL.

[former member 7]

Just a quick question about fly swaps. When you enter into a swap and tie the required number of the proposed pattern, do you send the fly 'recipe' to the organiser, or do you let the recipients try & work out the dressing for themselves ????

[greenock]

I've been in swaps where people have sent the recipe with the flies but most people just post it up on the swap thread if someone asks for it so everyone can see it.

[evil spy]

so where can i do this, is there a website?

[mot]

Hi Evil Spy,

Forum members run them from time to time, if you have a look back at some old threads you'll find some examples of ones that have been run before. Its a matter of waiting until someone decides to run one and getting in on it. Or alternatively running a swap yourself, its pretty simple to do. Just a case of setting a theme, deciding how many people you want to participate(and therefore how many flies each person needs to tie) and posting a thread.

In most swaps on this forum people agree to tie an extra fly, the resultant extra set is either given to a charity or sold off and the proceeds donated to charity. Also worth considering if you plan to run a swap.

Hope this helps

mot

[danielp]

Could we possibly have a list of charities which can make use of the flies stickied somewhere? Just organising one myself and have no idea which charities can make use of flies.

Cheers